


All the other afternoon teas

by redsnake05



Category: The Tiger Who Came To Tea - Judith Kerr
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 20:18:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4679975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redsnake05/pseuds/redsnake05
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sophie is obviously an afternoon tea sort of a person. And possibly an elevensies and supper sort of a person too. So are all her acquaintance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the other afternoon teas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DaisyNinjaGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisyNinjaGirl/gifts).



> I loved your prompt and really had to run with this.

The tiger never did come back. The tiger food sat unused on the bottom shelf of the cupboard for a while, until Sophie's Daddy hauled it out to the shed where it piled in amongst the paint tins, a broken chair and some mysterious car pieces. Sophie had nearly forgotten the whole adventure when, on a wet Sunday morning as her mother put together a snack for elevensies, the doorbell rang again.

Peeking round her mother's legs, Sophie saw a neat family of foxes, tails tidily brushed, clustered on the doorstep. She started to smile, and saw an answering smile on the face of one of the smaller foxes. 

"Excuse me," asked Father Fox, bowing slightly, "are you Sophie? And Sophie's Mummy? We're rather hungry. Can we come for elevensies?"

"Of course," said Sophie's Mummy. She ushered them in, and Sophie trailed along behind them, delighted to have another adventure.

There wasn't enough room at the table, particularly when Sophie's Daddy came in from the shed, looking embarrassed as he compared his shirtsleeves and dirty fingernails to Father Fox's neatly clipped claws and impeccable whiskers. He heaved a table into the sitting room for the children and slipped into the bathroom while Sophie and her Mummy hastily spread a clean cloth on the little table and laid it fresh for Sophie and the fox children. Sophie's Daddy emerged, looking much sprucer and wearing his nice black and white check jacket, just in time for Sophie's Mummy to dispense tea and cakes to everyone. 

The fox family were very polite, and complimented the refreshments, and they only ran out of milk right at the end of the meal. Even then, Fox Mother said very graciously that she had already had enough tea. One of the fox children ate half a crayon, but was very apologetic as he put the partly chewed other half into Sophie's hand, and she didn't mind because it was a brown she didn't use often anyway. They had a delightful romp around the sitting room and behind all the chairs as the grown ups nibbled on biscuits and talked about important grown-up things like hedges and the price of petrol. The fox children were tiny and warm and made Sophie laugh when they climbed over her and ran around her feet.

The fox family left with polite smiles and many thanks, and Sophie turned to her Mummy and Daddy to see what they had to say.

"Houndstooth? Really?" asked Sophie's Mummy, shaking her head at Sophie's Daddy.

"I'd better get a more animal-friendly jacket," said Sophie's Daddy. 

And that was the end of that. 

Except that the animals kept coming. There was the hippopotamus who flooded the bathroom, and the bear who fell asleep behind the sofa, whom they had to keep covered with a blanket for the next four months and had to be prodded when he started snoring. There was the owl who arrived at supper time and ruffled his feathers importantly and had to have his tea in a bowl. There was the kangaroo with a little joey who accidentally kicked and broke a chair while trying to arrange her tail, and a little pangolin mother with three babies on her back, who taught Sophie to curl up and roll around until her head spun. 

They tried many things to stop the animals from coming, because animal visitors are not always very tidy or convenient. Once, Sophie and her Mummy sat still and quiet in the sitting room while the doorbell rang four times. Sophie's Daddy had to throw out his shoes after finding poo on the doorstep after that, so they decided that wasn't the best idea. Once, they said they were just about to go out themselves, which just led to having afternoon tea at a cafe with a rather boisterous trio of beavers. Sophie's Mummy shook her head in dismay at some of their pranks, and Sophie and her Mummy had to avoid that cafe for a while after that.

Eventually, though, they came to accept it as inevitable, if unpredictable. Sometimes there was a disaster, sometimes a mess, and sometimes everyone had an excellent time. Sophie's Mummy became an expert in whipping up last minute treats, and Sophie got a little card table she could set up for herself if the main table ever overflowed with guests, and her own tea set for use with her smaller animal visitors. Sophie's Daddy got a new jacket that didn't show the animal hair, though he was seldom home when the animals came round. 

As Sophie got older, the visits became less and less frequent. Eventually, they stopped altogether. Sophie's Daddy got too fat for his animal-visit jacket, and Sophie's Mummy stopped having extra baking supplies in the cupboard. The little card table stayed folded up in the hall cupboard. Sophie never forgot, but the memories faded a little, and became sweet and wistful like the pictures in her old storybooks. She took up painting, and if her soft colours and wobbly chairs and serious animals weren't in step with what the other students were making, she decided that she didn't really mind.

Time went on. Sophie left home and studied and worked. She met someone who she thought could have afternoon teas with animals in their past too, and when they had a baby she decided that staying home might be just her thing. She dug out her old storybooks and learned her Mum's baking tricks. Her Dad's jackets were pressed into service for dressing up. She remembered that she loved to paint, and her tea sets and rickety card tables were juxtaposed with sleek and well-groomed animals once more. 

One day, there was a knock on her door. Her daughter clung to her leg and peered out around it to see who it might be. It couldn't be the postman, because he'd already been past, and it couldn't be delivery people, because they weren't expecting any. Sophie's face broke into a huge smile as she opened the door. Three delightfully furry badgers sat there, with claws carefully cleaned, one herding a smaller badger that was attempting to play with its own tail.

"Hello," said Sophie. "Would you like to come in to tea?"

Of course they did.


End file.
